Forensic analysis of social media applications on mobile devices

Mobile devices have begun to be used extensively in all areas of life in recent years. There are many types of mobile devices on the market, and a variety of operating systems, file systems and applications for these devices have been developed. With this development, the usage rates of these devices in criminal activities have also increased. The use of mobile devices has become an important issue, as the ever-changing and evolving mobile devices are used directly or indirectly in the process of crime. This need has revealed mobile forensic computing as a branch of forensic computing. Mobile forensic science is a science which aims to obtain data by examining digital evidence from a mobile device with accepted methods and to reveal the succesive subject matter in the light of this data. Social networking is the science of reaching out to many personal data that can be evidence on social networks and analyzing and reporting them. Considering the multitude of personal data left by social networking applications on mobile devices, the importance of reviewing social media applications on mobile devices arises. In this thesis study, the necessary processes for Forensic analysis of mobile devices were examined, necessary procedures for data extraction from mobile devices were explained, and how social media applications should be analyzed in terms of forensic information. In the application part of the thesis study, on the devices which have Android and iOS which are the most used mobile operating systems today; Facebook, WhatsApp Messenger, Instagram, Twitter and BiP Messenger applications were installed, and basic user behavior was performed. In the study, Oxygen Forensic, Paraben E3: DS, Magnet Axiom tools, which are among the most competent tools in the field of mobile forensics, were used.